Rescue Plan and Tallescope Usage

[Andrew C]

Note also: most people who faint recover almost as quickly as they passed out with no ill effects. Perhaps don't be *too* hasty to put the 'rescue' into effect, eh? ;)

... once they are horizontal. If they remain vertical, epileptic fit like symptoms ensue.

[Seano]

... once they are horizontal. If they remain vertical, epileptic fit like symptoms ensue.

 

You did get the "not entirely serious" bit right? ;)

 

I've read a fair bit about so called "suspension trauma" (or whatever they're calling it this week) which is all about what happens when someone loses consciousness but doesn't fall over. Most of that would suggest the potential for someone to go into shock with symptoms somewhat similar to hypovolemic shock. (Because 'blood pooling' in the lower extremities is a lot like blood loss as far as the rest of the body is concerned.)

 

Never come across anything remotely like that though. What's your source?

 

Academic anyway, there's no way anyone would faint in a Talle basket and remain upright. (Well, not unless they're such a snug fit in the basket they'd have to be way over the weight limit anyway.)

[Andrew C]

Never come across anything remotely like that though. What's your source?

My daughter. Fainted at a gig, in the pit, didn't fall due to the crush, and was proper poorly for an hour or so. Tested for photosensitive epilepsy, but as the ambulance crew, and the A&E dept thought at the time, it was just a faint with complications. Due to the brain being short of oxygen enriched blood; which is fixed by falling over.

[ramdram]

From reading the comments from others it is pretty clear that leaving it to the F&R bods is by far the most sensible and possibly only option.

 

It is unlikely that a F&R team from "anywhere" could not attend and effect the rescue. Indeed it might be the only option if the local bods were not equipped or trained anyway. Some rural areas rely on standby volunteer F&R crews, much like the Lifeboats system. I would say they are there to start tackling a blaze or see to an RTA before their full time colleagues arrive.

 

Regardless of whether or not "you" have done everything to guard against accidents you cannot think of everything and by the nature of things accidents can just happen...nobody is to blame or it's an Act of God...accidents are accidents and happen all the time.

 

Similarly you cannot really plan for all scenarios in your rescue plan because you would have to think of a situation and then plan a rescue from that particular situation. then think of another situation and so on and on and on.

 

Of course you can't have ordinary tech blokes devising SAS missions or expect them to swing from the grid (if there) in a harness to effect a rescue. This "visceral congestion" thing we may have heard of could affect the rescuer too (masses of info on google), especially if they are obliged to lean over in the harness just to reach the victim.

 

Earlier there was mention of using airbags to break a fall. If the person had died in the basket then heaving the tallescope over, complete with corpse, may well be the only viable option of recovery without endangering other folk. It would be utterly pointless to risk a person's life to "rescue" a corpse. Retrieving a body is an entirely different matter.

 

There was another point above ref devising a rescue plan because the manufacturer had not. One could argue that if the manufacturer had not devised such a plan it was because they too had realized that there could not be a one size fits all approach...and to advise a practice, which went awry, could open the gates to a legal hell.

[kerry davies]

Seano, if I wrote MEWP I apologise, I thought I had specified an Elevated Work Platform as the term for any platform of any size at height, particularly tower scaff in our game. Tallies are just single person towers according to the designers.

 

Your reinforcement of preventive measures is important and welcome and yes, asking a technician to second guess the makers is silly but if they want to use the thing they need a plan. That is why my first post here started with "Oh sh1t."

In order to use WAH equipment one has to have an RA, for 'platforms' that RA has to include a rescue plan. If the makers haven't got one it has to be created by the responsible employer/user. If the employer/user cannot create one then they should not, legally speaking, use the equipment. Can of worms.

 

I personally got some interesting images from the cardboard box/airbag idea. Not as mad as it may seem to some if they read scaffolding and building journals. So you are indeed reasonable. Well, reasonably reasonable.

[Seano]

if I wrote MEWP I apologise, I thought I had specified an Elevated Work Platform

 

No, you're quite right - the mistake is mine I think. "Elevated Work Platform" isn't a term I've come across before, so I went from EWP -> MEWP in my own head.

 

If the makers haven't got one it has to be created by the responsible employer/user.

 

I'm not so sure about that "has to be" - I think the HSaW Act's catch phrase fits better: the responsible employer/user should come up with a plan "so far as is reasonably practicable". If something specific to the venue, say, offers a good simple plan then great. Otherwise I think it would be far too easy to come up with something ineffective, even counterproductive.

 

And with that, we've come full circle I think. ;)

Best of luck to the OP.

[kerry davies]

Nit-picking again Seano, but the Management of H&S at Work Regulations 1999 state;

 

3.—(1) Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of—

(a)the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work;

 

Key word "shall", an imperative command. I'm not saying that the RP or RA has to be the best thing since sliced bread it just has to be made.

[Tomo]

This thread has really has got utterly ridiculous.

 

The HaSaWA says 'reduce risk as far as reasonably practicable'.

It does not say eliminate it, and it does not say that you must have a rescue plan.

 

So, thinking out loud (perhaps you could call this an RA process?):

 

In a situation where either a ladder or a tallie may be used: (no third option)

 

• If you use a ladder, then a collapsed individual will just hit the deck with immediate and significant risk of death or serious injury.
  
• If you use a tallescope, then a collapsed individual is unlikely to fall immediately.
  

So all else being equal, do you choose a method of access that gives a casualty time in which they may recover, or one where they will be immediately injured?

 

Remember that under 'normal' conditions the worker is protected by the basket, thus many minor incidents that would be "near-misses" or even serious accidents on a ladder become nothing at all on a tallie.

 

From this alone, in many situations a tallescope even with no rescue plan whatsoever will still be safer than a ladder.

 

Either way if somebody does actually collapse then you will be calling the emergency services.

One way they've got a casualty in a pool of blood, the other it's a casualty in the air - or maybe on the ground having recovered enough to climb down.

 

So the risk has already been reduced - both during the work activity and due to unexpected events.

 

Secondly, we reduce the risk of there being a casualty at all as previously mentioned.

 

Finally, to see if it can be reduced further one does need to consider if there are reasonably practical ways to recover a casualty from the basket.

As far as I can work out, there are only two possibilities:

 

• Move the tallie against a fixed platform at a similar level, tie it off so it won't fall then drag the casualty out onto that fixed platform at leisure.
  
• Build a 3-man scaffold or erect a 3-man self-powered (M)EWP next to the tallie. (It'll take at least two people to move the casualty)
  

If you could reasonably put such a large (M)EWP where the tallie is, then you'd be using a 1 or 2-man self-powered (M)EWP in the first place. So that's out.

If you build a scaffold, then first you've got to somehow transfer a casualty from the tallie to the scaffold. However, that leaves you with a casualty up a scaffold...

 

That leaves moving the tallie to a similar-height fixed platform etc

However, moving an occupied tallie with an incapacitated person on top is likely to be more risky than the same movement with an alert individual up there. So that won't be suitable in all situations (or possibly at all!) even if a venue is blessed with many fixed platforms at various heights.

 

To summarise:

If you have decided that a tallie is safer for a given job than a ladder before considering a rescue plan, then how could using a tallie without a rescue plan become more dangerous than a ladder?

 

They don't suddenly become more dangerous than ladders because of a remote possibility you could faint and get stuck up there - remember that the alternative is to faint and fall!

 

- Of course, given a third practical possibility that does have a rescue, this argument vanishes and you should use the third one.

[Ynot]

This thread has really has got utterly ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more with that, or with Tomo's entire post.

The mere suggestion of moving the 'Scope to a suitable alternative (fixed) platform relies on a) there being a pltform such as the fly rail at a similar height, which you can't guarantee, and b) that the on site staff are willing, able and competent to risk themselves and that casualty by attempting such a rescue.

 

The whole set of issues surrounding both the USE of Tallescopes and the potential need for such rescue plans should most definitely depend upon the local venue's risk assessments. And as I've been at pains to say before, an intrinsic part of any RA is the assess the LIKELIHOOD of something going wrong which would POSSIBLY cause an incident resulting in injury. And in assessing that likelihood, one would need to look at how many incidents there have been in the past (both locally and in the big wide world) have been documented that support either the Draconian blanket ban on certain use of the 'scope, or the desperate need to develop a rescue plan.

 

So in the same way that I asked in the other Talle topics what evidence there was to support the insistence on sudden rush a while back to enforce the no-occupied-movement edict, what evidence is there documented to show that there have been instances where people have indeed collapsed whilst in a Talle basket, and indeed how there they rescued...? Has there ever been an incident?

 

And on my assumption that once this assessment has been carried out and locally recorded in the 'highly unlikely' column, then I see no reason why the simple mitigation of that very low risk cannot simply be "Call emergency services if there is no obvious way of retrieving the casualty".

[Seano]

3.—(1) Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of—

(a)the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work;

 

Key word "shall", an imperative command. I'm not saying that the RP or RA has to be the best thing since sliced bread it just has to be made.

 

You know the legislation much better than me, but it seems to me that "shall" applies to the RA not the RP.

I suspect the real meat of an argument about what exactly this means would be the precise definition of the phrase "suitable and sufficient".

 

Is a NTBTSSB rescue plan "suitable and sufficient"? Personally I think not. I'd say if you're going to have a a rescue plan it *does* need to be good.

 

Furthermore, if a rescue plan involves things outside of the regular job (dangling on ropes, for example, or transferring a person from one basket to another) it would seem to me it needs a careful risk assessment of its own. Its too easy for a poorly planned rescue attempt to a generate more casualties for someone else to have to deal with.

 

 

The HaSaWA says 'reduce risk as far as reasonably practicable'.

It does not say eliminate it, and it does not say that you must have a rescue plan.

 

The (alledged) requirement for a rescue plan comes from the Work at Height Regulations (2005).

No one has suggested the HaSaW Act requires one - I brought that into the discussion trying to make the same point that you're making here.

 

<snip of much sensible stuff>

However, moving an occupied tallie with an incapacitated person on top is likely to be more risky than the same movement with an alert individual up there. So that won't be suitable in all situations (or possibly at all!) even if a venue is blessed with many fixed platforms at various heights.

I guess that would depend on the position and state of the incapacitated person.

But as far as I know it is quite normal to accept risks in the course of a 'live' rescue that wouldn't be considered acceptable during day to day work. Perhaps moving an occupied scope might be an example of that.

 

To summarise:

If you have decided that a tallie is safer for a given job than a ladder before considering a rescue plan, then how could using a tallie without a rescue plan become more dangerous than a ladder?

Yup. Couldn't agree more.

 

Of course, given a third practical possibility that does have a rescue, this argument vanishes and you should use the third one.

If the OP has a flat floor and a bit of storage space, I wonder if a Genie IWP might fit the bill.

[Andrew Edwards]

But if I had a Genie, I wouldn't need a Tallescope in the first place...

 

The problem I have is in all likelihood a GR15 for example, at nearly a ton, would damage our stage at best and go through it at worst.

 

The platform to push the scope to is fine only if that platform has stair like access or can be lowered to stage level. Also you would need the platform to be variable to the same range as the Tallescope extension. Looking at the cost to implement this in our venue, it would be cheaper to fetch our floor up and replace the underlying T+G with concrete...and then HP a GR15.

[ramdram]

Surely we arrived at a conclusion a long while back. If the occupant of the basket is incapable etc, etc, the rescue will be by the F&R bods, not a bunch of amateur would be "International Rescue" wannabes.

 

All this info about what protocol takes precedence does not help the bod in the basket does it? There has been an accident, full stop. Something has to be done straight away.

 

Having a chinese parliament immediately after the event to decide and possibly argue the toss about which rescue plan is simply wasting time.

 

Now we read that rescue plans are not mandatory, or possibly they are, depending if it is a full moon or the tides in or the theatre cat is on holiday...

 

Forget all that. The accident has happened, call the Emergency Services and let them do what they do.

 

Banging on about the management of risk and hierarchical this that and the other is not getting the bod rescued.

 

Imagine being in the dock and the question you are now facing from prosecuting counsel is, "Why did you not call the Emergency Services immediately after the accident?"

 

Reply: "Because we thought we could manage the rescue ourselves."

 

PC: "In the same way you thought you could manage the safe operation of the tallescope? No further questions."

[kitlane]

From a presentation found on the HSE website. Presentation is titled 'The Work at Height Regulations 2005 (WAHR) Part 3. Legal Requirements

 

The slide is titled 'Planning for emergencies and rescues'

 

"Do not rely on the fire brigade"

[ramdram]

Sounds like utter tosh to say things like that, the HSE I mean, not yourself. Was there any explanation of their rationale?

 

Undermines the entire ethos of having the Emergency Services. That is why they exist, to extinguish fires and do the rescue thing.

 

We have all seen the clips of an entire appliance and crew turning out to rescue a cat stuck up a tree...forced to choose between the cat in the tree and some bod, badly injured up a tallescope, I cannot believe the cat would take priority.

 

And considering the origin strikes me it comes under the fudd heading.

[Ynot]

From a presentation found on the HSE website. Presentation is titled 'The Work at Height Regulations 2005 (WAHR) Part 3. Legal Requirements

 

The slide is titled 'Planning for emergencies and rescues'

 

"Do not rely on the fire brigade"

Hmmm...

I've just scanned the actual WAHR 2005 document (don't have time at the mo to dig too deep) but can't see ANY reference in the fine print there which says any such thing...

There's not a great deal on rescue either...

 

Can you link to that presentation Kit?